THE ORIENTAL SOCIETY OF
AUSTRALIA
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY N.S.W. 2006
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The Oriental Society cordially invites members, friends and guests of the Society to the April 2012 seminar.
Date: Friday 27th April 2012
Time: 5.00pm to 6.30 pm
Venue: The Common room, Woolley Building, The University of Sydney
Speaker: Professor S. N. Mukherjee
Title: The City and the Poet: Calcutta and Rabindranath Tagore.
Abstract:
In 1961, at a gathering in London to celebrate Tagore Centenary, Jack Lindsay, the doyen of
Australian socio-cultural criticism, said, ‘Rabindranath Tagore as a poet and humanist is widely
known as a name, but generally as little more. His achievement is, however, so vital and so far
reaching that we can all profit by considering and studying it. His many-sidedness becomes a
powerful protest against the fragmentation of modern men, an expression of human wholeness’…
(Jack Lindsay,’ Tagore, Poet and Humanist’, in Stephen Knight and S.N.Mukherjee (eds.), Words
and Worlds: Studies in the social role of Verbal Culture, SASSC no.1 Sydney, 1983.)
In this paper I shall introduce Tagore to an audience in Australia. I think that his name is widely
known, but little more. I shall try to show that his poetry and his thoughts are very relevant today,
particularly on education, peace and green environment. The second part will deal with the Indian
political world and Tagore. The third and main part of my paper will deal with Calcutta, a city on
which I have been engaged in research for the last 46 years and have published books and articles on
urban history. And Rabindranath was born in Calcutta and died in Calcutta. Although his most
creative period both in prose and poetry was those twenty years, between 1890 and 1910, when he
spent most of his time in Shantiniketan in West Bengal and/or in Shiliadoho a family property in,
what we now call Bangladesh, the City remained very important to the Poet.
Biography:
Professor Mukherjee has 49 years of teaching and post-doctoral research experience. Before joining the
department of History, Sydney in 1971, he was Agatha Harrison Memorial Fellow, St.Antony’s College,
Oxford, University Assistant Lecturer in the History of South Asia, University of Cambridge, Editor, Nehru
Papers, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, and Director, ICSSR (Indian Council of Social Science
Research) project on the history of Calcutta, which was sponsored by the Indian Institute of Management,
Calcutta. In 1988 Professor Mukherjee was appointed the Director of the Centre for Indian Studies, University
of Sydney. He was also founder of the Department of Indian Sub-Continental Studies. He was active in
various Committees of the Faculty of Arts, particularly in Inter-diciplinary and Inter-area Committees. He
introduced many innovative courses in the Departments of History and Indian Studies. He was a member of
the Australia-India Council, 1993-1995. He has travelled widely in Europe, America, India and Australia,
giving lectures, attending seminars and conferences. Recently, in 2008 he gave the 225th Foundation Day
Oration to the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.
Professor Mukherjee has written and /or edited and translated 23 books in the years between 1966 and 2005.
He has also published over 110 articles and reviews in England, The Netherlands, USA, Italy, India and
Australia, written in English and Bengali. The following books are important:
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Sir William Jones, A Study in Eighteenth-Century British Attitudes to India, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1968. The Second edition by Orient Longman, Bombay, 1987.
Calcutta: ‘A City of Splendid Palaces and Dingy Streets’, Fiction as History,
Basham Lecture 1986, ANU, Canberra, 1987.
Calcutta: Essays in Urban History, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, 1993
Citizen Historian, Explorations in Historiography, Sydney Studies 13, Sydney Association for
Studies in Society and Culture and Manohar, Sydney and Delhi, 1996.
Second and Revised edition by SASSC and Subarnarekha, Calcutta and Sydney, 2002.
Images and Realities: Nineteenth-Century Calcutta in Bengali Literature, c1818-1910. Kuruvila
Zachariah Memorial Lecture 2004, Presidency College, Kolkata, 2005.
Edited and Translated Books: 3 books from this category are often used, they are:
Professor Sir Edmund Leach and S.N.Mukherjee (Eds.) Elites in South Asia, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1970. A paperback edition by Cambridge University Press was
published in 2009.
Professor Michael Allen and S.N.Mukherjee (Eds.) Women in India and Nepal, ANU Press.
Canberra. 1982. A second and enlarged edition published by Sterling, New Delhi, 1990.
Sir Edmund Leach, S.N.Mukherjee and John O Ward (Eds.), Feudalism: Comparative
Studies, SASSC No. 2, Sydney, 1985.
He edited and translated B.C. Chatterjee’s works with Dr. Marian Maddern and Poison Tree,
Penguin (India), New Delhi, 1995 is still in demand.
Our web site
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/JOSA/
Dinner: 7:15 pm
Venue: The Cushion House
73 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW 2037
Tel/Fax: ((02) 8084 0285
Enquiries and dinner attendance: please contact Seiko Yasumoto by 25th April
Seiko Yasumoto
Hon. Secretary, The Oriental Society of Australia
Japanese and Asian Studies, SLC
Rm 544 MacCallum Building A18 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 Australia
T +61 2 9351 4716 | F +61 2 9351 2319
E seiko.yasumoto @sydney.edu.au